CH #7 - ABOUT THE QUARANTINE
Quarantine. A long-lost word has surfaced again,
unsettling our daily lives.
‘Infections keep on rising; new patients crop up every day. To get out of this situation, we need to defer the peak to as far as we can’.
That’s what many doctors and journalists I know and value are saying. Others agree with that message.
Strangely enough, there is an opposite trend growing: an increasing intolerance to the precautions taken by the Government, in the name of ‘normality at all costs’.
What is this disconnection due to?
It might be that this emergency, mostly taking place in certain areas, is confusing and is shaking our social habits and professional lives.
The point is, though, that we should try to look beyond the boundaries of temporary nuisances to try to imagine the end of this emergency.
We all can contribute to get closer to the end or to push further away from the end of it.
It will end sooner or later.
It will end sooner if we can all do our share to break the contamination chain.
It is hard to come to a halt with our lives, to pause. I understand that better every day that goes by.
If we have the time during this deadlock, we should try to dig deeper into the news we are overloaded with every day. This pause could be a vaccine against superficial stories, posts, videos and clickbait articles, which often only have an advertising or a self-promotion purpose.
I observe the general news like a photographer through a panoramic lens, but from my privileged viewpoint as Francesca’s husband, I can also zoom right into the harsh reality of hospitals’ corridors.
Through my panoramic lens, I, unfortunately, see plenty of biased, short-sighted opinions, many serving the mere purpose of increasing one’s popularity as an influencer, others of individuals believing they are medical experts.
Read through the following article on the importance of delivering correct information about the COVID-19 outbreak.
THE LANCET: “We’re not just fighting an epidemic; we’re fighting an infodemic”. (Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director-General WHO)
I would also like to remind everyone of the existence of newspapers, of which online versions are widely available as well. For those complaining about the fact that publications are not free of charge, I’d like to remind you that real journalism is a full-time job. A lot of young people cannot find a job as journalists because newspapers don’t have the resources for employing them anymore. Readers seem to happily settle for the free news they can catch on Google.
Today, for example, Il Giornale di Brescia, Brescia’s newspaper, dedicated 12 pages to the Coronavirus outbreak. There’s data elaboration, multiple interviews. The other local papers are doing a great job as well, so as the ones on a national level, with detailed and thorough accounts.
I feel comfortable relying on the words written by so many colleagues around the country. I do not always agree with what they write, but I value their enormous contribution. I trust competent professionals who know how to deliver news objectively, without any personal gain and without trying to influence us with their opinions.
Reading newspapers not only is better than flipping through titles and previews on social media, but it also becomes a way of supporting and guaranteeing healthy, democratic information.
It’s not only about freedom of expression: it’s also about navigating the media looking at different viewpoints. We should also remember that on social media, everyone has a voice, but the algorithm decides what we should see.
And if Corona beer sales have dropped since the epidemic started, it is safe to say it is quite easy to influence us.
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Thank you for reading this post. But if you didn’t, and you jumped to this point to see how it ended, let me sum it all up for you with a CNN quote:
“Just to be abundantly clear: there is no link between the virus and the beer.”
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"Vita" Photo Credits: Ettore Pilati
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